CVE-2020-22650
Official description Straight from the sourceThe vendor's or NVD's own wording, published unedited. Authoritative, but often terse — it says what broke, rarely what to do.
NVD · uneditedA memory leak vulnerability in sim-organizer.c of AlienVault Ossim v5 causes a denial of service (DOS) via a system crash triggered by the occurrence of a large number of alarm events.
Technical summary Written by usOur analysis, written from the advisory, the CVSS vector and the affected-version data. It adds context the advisory leaves out, and never invents facts that are not in the source.
dbcve analysis · moderate confidenceA memory leak vulnerability exists in sim-organizer.c of AlienVault Ossim v5. When a large number of alarm events occur, the component fails to properly release allocated memory, causing memory exhaustion that leads to system crash and denial of service.
Verify against the referenced sources before acting — the references below are authoritative for this CVE, this summary is not.
Affected products & versions What the vendor confirmedThe version ranges the vendor confirmed as vulnerable. If your version sits inside a range here, treat yourself as exposed until you have upgraded.
NVD · CPE data= 5.0CVSS breakdown How the score is builtThe industry scoring standard. It rates how the flaw is reached, what it takes to exploit, and what an attacker gains — the score is derived from those, not the other way round.
From the vector- Attack vector
- Network
- Complexity
- Low
- Privileges
- None
- User interaction
- None
- Scope
- Unchanged
- Confidentiality
- None
- Integrity
- None
- Availability
- High
CVSS:3.1/AV:N/AC:L/PR:N/UI:N/S:U/C:N/I:N/A:H
Am I affected? How to checkSteps we derive from the advisory and the affected-version data, so you can decide whether this CVE reaches your setup. They are a guide, not a scan — your own configuration is the authority.
dbcve checksWork through these to decide whether this CVE applies to you.
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Confirm AlienVault Ossim installationCheck if the product is installed by looking for /etc/ossim/ossim_setup.conf or running 'dpkg -l | grep alienvault' on Debian-based systems, or checking Program Files/AlienVault on WindowsAffected if AlienVault Ossim is not installed, the system is not affected
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Verify Ossim version is 5.0Run 'ossim-reconfig -v' or check the version file at /etc/ossim/ossim_version, or look at the About section in the Ossim web interfaceAffected if The installed version is exactly 5.0 - only this specific version is affected per the CVE
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Confirm sim-organizer component is in useCheck if the SIM (Security Information Manager) engine is enabled by examining /etc/ossim/server/config.xml or running 'ps aux | grep sim-organizer' to see if the process is runningAffected if The sim-organizer process is active and processing alarm events - this is the component where the memory leak occurs
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Monitor for memory exhaustion symptomsUse 'top' or 'free -m' to check available memory, and review /var/log/ossim/ossim_server.log for crash events or memory allocation failures occurring during high alarm event volumesAffected if System is experiencing unexplained memory exhaustion or crashes when alarm event volume is high - this indicates potential exploitation of this vulnerability
The environment is affected only if AlienVault Ossim version 5.0 is installed AND the sim-organizer component is actively processing alarm events, causing observable memory exhaustion under high event load.
Generated from the published advisory. Verify against your own configuration.
Remediation Closing itWhat it takes to close this. Where a vendor fix exists we point at it; where none exists we say so plainly, and can build one. Effort estimates are scoped from the advisory, not from your codebase.
From vendor dataApply the vendor patch for CVE-2020-22650 to fix the memory leak in sim-organizer.c. Consider implementing rate limiting or alerting on abnormal alarm event volumes as a compensating control until the patch can be applied.
- Consultation4.0 h
- Implementation2.0 h
- Testing8.0 h
- Review / QA4.0 h
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Free · runs locallyCheck whether your project pulls in CVE-2020-22650 — or any other known-vulnerable package — straight from your lock files. Free and open source; it runs locally and uploads nothing.
References Go to the primary sourcePrimary sources — vendor advisories, patches and trackers. Where our summary and a reference disagree, the reference wins.
Primary sourcesPractitioner notes
ContributedPeer-ranked notes from engineers who’ve handled CVE-2020-22650 in production — separate from our analysis above.
The advisory tells you what broke. It rarely tells you what actually worked. If you’ve dealt with this one, that detail is what the next engineer is searching for.
- The version that genuinely resolved it — not the one the vendor claimed
- A config change or rule that shut the vector down
- A gotcha in the upgrade path that cost you an afternoon
No notes yet
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- Verified mitigations, workarounds, and config changes
- Version or environment caveats, and links to real fixes
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